North Korea is building a fence, presumably to keep the Chinese out of the Worker’s Paradise

SEOUL, South Korea: North Korea has started building a fence along parts of its border with China, a news report said Sunday, in an apparent move to prevent North Koreans from fleeing the impoverished communist country.

The North has put in place posts along a 10-kilometer (6 mile) stretch along a narrow tributary of the Yalu River, which marks the border between North Korea and China, and has also built a road to guard the area, Yonhap news agency reported.

The North has yet to string barbed wire fencing between the posts, Yonhap reported.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry had no immediate comment on the report.

The fence comes less than a year after China built a massive barbed wire and concrete fence along its side of the same river.

This will work as well as Kim Jong-Il’s hair stylist.

This is an account of a middle class North Korean family’s journey from North Korea to Thailand. The part that amazes me is not the people that escape, but the people who take huge risks to help them (even if it is for the money).

• The DPRK-centric blogosphere is expanding slowly but surely with two new sites. Be sure to visit unification studies and the DPRK forum.

• OFK has a long three part review of Marcus Noland and Stephan Haggard’s “Famine in North Korea: Markets, Aid, and Reform”.
• They must have had 10,000 synchronized swimmers in hand this year.